Jessica Alba Opened Up About Going to Therapy With Her 13-Year-Old Daughter
Jessica Alba is opening up about attending therapy with her 13-year-old daughter, Honor.
On the latest episode of Katherine Schwarzenegger's Instagram series, Before, During & After Baby, which was posted on July 22, the Honest Company founder revealed that she began seeing a therapist with her eldest child when she was just 11 years old.
“I felt like my relationship really suffered with my parents because they didn't know how to communicate with me and how I needed to be parented,” Alba told Schwarzenegger. “So I didn't want that breakdown with Honor, so we went to therapy together.”
Jessica Alba has three children—Honor, nine-year-old Haven, and three-year-old Hayes—with her husband, Cash Warren, and spoke about her parenting philosophy during the 40-minute chat. “I take the approach of making sure they understand boundaries and respect but trying to see them each individually and meet them where they are,” she said.
“[Honor] really felt empowered to find her voice, speak her voice, and own her opinions,” Alba said of their sessions, adding that her daughter was able to bring up her concerns in therapy.
“She was like, ‘You need to spend more time with me alone without Haven around.’ That was a big one,” Alba said. “And, ‘You need to treat me like I'm me and she's her. You can't mush us together.’ I have to say, I kind of still struggle with that.”
The CEO's therapist ultimately tasked the mom of three with scheduling 30 minutes a week for each of her kids. “I haven't started this practice yet. I have a hard time with consistency, so that's another thing that I'm working on,” Alba admitted. “It's not just doing sort of the, Well, we ate dinner together, and we did homework together, and going through the motions of day-to-day, but we're going to cover up 30 minutes we're gonna do whatever you want.”
She joked, “I don't know if I can spend five hours playing trucks with Hayes. So I'm trying to make it's fair, like, Let's start with 30 minutes, and it could become whatever it becomes. But then they feel like they're getting that special one-on-one time.”
You can watch the full discussion, below.
Originally Appeared on Glamour
